Batman vs Superman
by dragonprincess1988
Summary: Tim is forced to listen to two of his classmates argue over who's better Batman or Superman, and the results are somewhat surprising to Tim.


Tim was sitting in class, going over his homework for the next two classes. He had about ten minutes until the bell rang for his next class--which was plenty of time to get his unfinished homework done. He had expected a normal day of boring, and so far, school hadn't disappointed him.

Two boys had moved from their seats in the back of the class, and sat down in the seats next to Tim. He didn't even know their first names. There was never any reason for him to be concerned with that information, so he wasn't. Tim knew that if he really cared that much he could easily find out later. The boys knew him, but only because, when your name is called that often without an answer, people tend to remember you as the kid who never comes to class. Especially when you're the kid with the highest grade in the class, even though you tend to miss 38 of classes. Some things were just unavoidable. Tim was about half way through one of the assignments he hadn't managed to finish the previous night, when he caught a bit of the argument between the two boys sitting next to him.

"Superman!" the slightly older boy with sandy blonde hair shouted at his friend.

"Batman!" the younger boy with brown hair and glasses insisted.

"Superman!" the first one declared, a bit louder.

The second boy rolled his eyes. "Batman! I'm telling you! He's way cooler."

Tim sighed as he tried to make it look like he was still working on the half finished assignment_. Oh, no. Someone make them shut up. Better yet, please don't let either of them bring me into this argument. It's all fine and dandy when you don't **know** both of the superheroes personally; but when you do, it's just awkward. Not to mention, I know one of them could very well be listening in on this conversation. Not that I don't think Clark has better things to do, or anything, but you never know when one might get bored and decide, 'Hey, let's see what's going on in the world. Let's tune into Tim's class. I'm sure something interesting has to be going on there.' Okay, I know, highly unlikely, but you never know._ Tim was brought out of his thoughts by the older one calling his name.

"Hey, Drake?" The boy snapped his fingers in front of Tim's face.

Tim was silently panicking; what he had feared most was coming, he just knew it. This was what he had wanted to avoid. "Yeah, sorry, what?"

The boy leaned closer to him. "You're smart, right? What do you think is a good way to end this argument once and for all?"

Tim held in his sigh of relief as his mind slowly reassured the rest of him that he could handle this. Okay, _I can get out of this relatively unscathed. I don't have to be asked the other horrible question. I can do this._ "Well, you could both calmly list your reasons why one or the other is better." _And not bother me about it anymore because this is uncomfortable._ Tim finished the sentence in his head as he tried to calm down.

The boys shrugged. "Okay, sounds reasonable. I'll go first. Superman is better because he's like totally invincible, and has amazing types of vision, and he's just cool. He can fly, and has super strength, and has basically no flaws."

The other boy scoffed. "Well, minus that whole kryptonite thing, right? How cool can you really be when your biggest physical weakness is a rock?"

The first boy folded his arms over his chest. "Okay, fine let's hear why you think Batman is so amazing. He doesn't even have superpowers."

The other boy cleared his throat. "That's the point! He doesn't have to have superpowers to be cool. He just is! Plus, I don't just think Batman rocks. I think Batman rocks, and he kicks Superman's butt."

Tim had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing. All he could think about was what the two heroes in question would look like if either of them overheard this argument. It would be just too funny. Tim wished he could recall something about the two boys in front of him…well, something besides the fact that the younger one was smarter. He knew that from listening to them gripe about test scores throughout the class. He knew the younger one had an A/B average and the older one had a B/C average, but still anything else about either, or both of them, would be nice, even if it was just a name.

The older boy was beginning to look quite annoyed with the younger one. "Oh yeah, why?"

The younger-looking boy started listing things off as he counted with his fingers. "Okay, well, first off, Batman rocks because he has no superpowers, like I already said. He's got his brains and his skills…that's it. He kicks Superman's butt, because he's more personable."

This time Tim did laugh. "Okay, how is Batman personable at all? Not to mention, more so than Superman?"

The younger boy smiled like a cat that had just caught a mouse. "Okay, think about it. Superman has his strength, and all of his other powers, and what not. He's just all happy and bright, no? How personable can he really be? Does he really know any kind of hardship? Sure, he's seen some pretty bad things through saving people, but he's SUPERMAN! How bad can his day to day life really be? What deep dark secrets can he really have? What true horrors could really be in his past? Truth is, if Superman saves you from something that's going to leave emotional scars what can he really say to you after that? He can probably give you an 'it'll be all right,' and a pat on the back, but if you've gone through something emotionally scarring, how helpful is that, really? Truth is, Superman's biggest flaw is his perfection."

Tim just sat there for a moment, staring at the two boys. He was actually a little shocked at the younger one's thought process. Truth was, Tim never really did the whole Batman vs. Superman comparison thing. It just seemed like a waste of time before he actually met the dark knight, and, after he had met both of them, they just seemed so different that it still seemed like a waste of time.

Now? Now, it seemed a bit scary that Batman could be considered 'better' than Superman just because of the horrors in his past which people perceived to be there. It was nearly terrifying to think that Batman could be considered more likable than Superman, just because he could understand emotional scarring, and essentially be more supportive and helpful in that kind of situation.

What was more upsetting was the thought that the one thing that could make a person truly flawed was perfection, or at least as close to it as anyone could get. Suddenly it seemed all of the times that Bruce had called Clark a "boy scout" as an insult really could be the most damning thing about Superman, and that was terrifying--to know that being seemingly perfect could be the one thing that made someone less personable than Batman was startling. The mere thought of it nearly made Tim shudder. He shook his head as if to clear it, and continued listening to the boys as they argued.

The older boy was acting a bit irritated at this point. "Oh, okay so that's all of Superman's 'flaws', but that still doesn't state why Batman is better, or why he would be more acclimated to deal with those kinds of situations."

The younger one nodded. "You're right. Batman is better because he's not all happy and bright. That right there tells me that he gets that life can suck, and he doesn't live in the clouds like a certain alien. To be as dark as Batman is, there's gotta be something in his past that just screams tortured soul. You don't get to be that dark and scary without that requirement. It just wouldn't make sense for a happy-go-lucky person with a picture-perfect life to go gallivanting around in a bat suit."

Tim mentally nodded. What could he say? The kid was right, and that in and of itself was a bit scary. The bell rang as Tim began to back up his things. Never before had he been so happy to be going to advanced trigonometry. He was pretty sure that he wasn't going to be getting both sides of his lives thrown together like that in this class, and he couldn't help but breathe a little sigh of relief at that thought. He sat down in his seat, and let his thoughts dwell on the argument he had witnessed earlier. _What does it say of man that the greatest perfection is imperfection?_ Tim let the thought fade away as he hurriedly finished the last few problems on the page he had for homework. Maybe that was something he needed to speak to Bruce about.

The End


End file.
